Cap and trade failed in 2009, despite the fact that Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House. The recent United Nations summit produced an agreement that means little — with countries like Canada dropping off an extension of the Kyoto Protocol. Meanwhile, high unemployment and economic woes are drawing public attention from environmental issues.

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Groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, left in the legislative wilderness, must be wondering where to go from here. The consensus among Democratic offices on Capitol Hill is that the best hope for their agenda — now that cap and trade is dead for good — is to pass a national renewable energy standard. This would require utility companies to produce a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources.

Thankfully, we have the states — those “50 laboratories of democracy,” as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called them — to show us that this mandate, like cap and trade, would drive up electricity bills for families, increase costs for employers and destroy jobs — and likely be unfeasible, to boot.

A renewable energy standard is nothing new. In fact, 29 states and the District of Columbia have a binding renewable energy standard on the books. The Democratic election waves of 2006 and 2008 swept in many liberal state legislators who, though they hadn’t run on it, passed renewable energy mandates once in office.

We’ve now had a few years to see some of the results. It isn’t pretty for taxpayers or the economy.

Renewable energy standards, by design, are intended to drive up energy costs — requiring utilities to use more expensive and often less reliable sources of energy. Not surprisingly, such laws have hit ratepayers hard. States that have a binding RES now have electricity costs that are 39 percent higher than states that don’t have a binding RES.

Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute has examined the effects of these mandates in individual states, and the results don’t get better. The RES in North Carolina, one of 2012’s key battleground states, is projected to reduce real disposable income by $56.8 million and likely be responsible for the loss of 3,592 jobs by 2021.

New Mexicans could pay an estimated $2.3 billion more for their power and lose more than 2,800 jobs by 2020, as a result of that state’s RES. Beacon Hill projected similarly bleak economic effects in various other states with an RES.

Opposition to renewable energy mandates should not be misinterpreted as an aversion to renewable energy. In fact, renewable sources could play a significant role in the future. But as Todd Wynn of the American Legislative Exchange Council astutely noted in a Cascade Policy Institute report: “Legislation that forces the use of renewable energies despite the resistance of the economy distorts the free market, reduces our freedom and raises the cost of doing business, thus endangering economic growth.”

Repealing renewable energy mandates already on the books in these 29 states would reduce costs for employers and promote economic growth. It’s not just good policy, it’s smart politics heading into an important election year.

With unemployment so high and the economy still in critical condition, the Pew Research Center’s latest annual survey of Americans’ top priorities found global warming ranked 21st — one spot above last place. The Pew survey listed the economy and jobs as the top two issues, respectively, with 87 percent of Americans citing the economy as their highest priority.

Legislators in states around the country are now working with Americans for Tax Reform to repeal renewable energy mandates in 2012. The iron is hottest to strike in states where Republicans recently took control of both the Legislature and the governorship — including Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those Rust Belt states have high unemployment and need relief from heavy-handed laws that are driving up families’ utility bills and reducing employers’ job-creating capacity.

If North Carolina and New Hampshire elect a Republican governor next year, those states also will be able to focus on repealing their rate-increasing mandates.

The fight on Capitol Hill last week was over the payroll tax cut extension. Yet state legislators can free up more money for struggling families — without costing a single taxpayer dollar or changing the Social Security “trust fund” — by repealing laws that mandate use of expensive, and often unreliable, sources of energy.

Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform. Patrick Gleason is its director of state affairs.

Readers' Comments (44)

Right, it makes SO much more sense to blow off researching and developing alternative/renewable sources of energy until the oil's run out.

Seems like quite a few of those far-right ballot initiatives crashed and burned, spectacularly, in the elections last month, there's every reason to think the advice offered by Norquist and Gleason is just as much of a political loser as those repudiated initiatives were.

Norquist & Gleason, the far-right's version of Tweedledum and Tweedledumber, never letting elitist trifles like facts, accuracy and logic trouble their beautiful minds.

Never heard of the Beacon Hill Institute? You would not be alone. Their web page proudly begins their self-description by listing their ideological leanings - so their "analysis" is going to be pretty predictable. If you stop to think about it, why would constructing new sources of energy supply cause us to lose jobs? In fact, there are a number of studies of the effects of renewable energy standards that show that they create jobs, which is what common sense would lead you to expect. It's no surprise that Grover Norquist would want to "give a bounce" to a purported analysis by some of his ideological buddies, but why should the rest of us give any credence to it?

This is precisely the kind of thinking that has the Chinese and Europeans jumping with glee at the prospect of soon totally dominating the alternative energy markets in the 21st century. With brain dead advice of the kind the authors provide that is based purely on an mantra of anti-science ideology and the lure of backroom political kickbacks, the US can be sure that it will remain wedded to coal, oil and gas and thus increasing deficits and higher fuel bills, as planetary temperatures rise and weather becomes increasingly erratic destroying the fabric of American agriculture and the ecosystems on which our economy depends. Somehow these authors pretend that by ignoring science profit will be theirs. Average temperatures currently throughout the South are about 10 degrees Farentheit above normal and precipitation about 10 inches below normal, but no matter to these guys as they make their money from the misery of others.

As with all investment, a dollar spent wisely now saves one's future later. Future citizens of the United States, especially in the South, will rue the day when they look back on this drivel and ask how could they have been so stupid as to believe in such patently corrupt and damaging notion that by turning over the future of energy production in the 21st century over to our competitors we will be saving money. The entire article sounds a lot like the commentary we heard of how the Iraqi war was going to pay for itself.

One can only assume that some are reassured to know these authors think summer time conditions in Texas and throughout the South are are nowhere hot enough and we need to pay more for our fruits and vegetables. Clearly, their fossil fuels friendly attitudes are keeping the light bulbs on, just too bad they are the least efficient and most costly and damaging type.

This is precisely the kind of thinking that has the Chinese and Europeans jumping with glee at the prospect of soon totally dominating the alternative energy markets in the 21st century.

Ugg, turkeyfish the Chinese are jumping at the chance to sell us more and more windmill parts and solar panels made in their dirty coal powered plants. The Chinese aren't using the renewables they are building the stuff so we can use these expensive power sources. The Chinese are building coal fired plants as fast as they can to satisfy their domestic energy needs.

And the Europeans aren't jumping for joy at anything, they are too busy figuring out how to end the Euro Zone without killing their economies.

Government mandates aren't driving research into renewables it is driving up costs on the people who pay the inflated rates those mandates cause.

The reason it's designed to drive up costs is because the costs of the dirty fuels are not being accounted for, you stupid, ignorant, GOP hacks. Even Libertarians understand the concept of market externalities, and at least they propose using tort law to force polluters to pay the full cost of dirty energy. The reason why it doesn't work with CO2 is because one can't "own" the atmosphere or oceans, there are no property rights, and where there are no property rights, capitalist doesn't work.

Aaaahhhh, renewable energy. Where physical science meets the dismal science. Where electricity meets economics. And why man can be described as an economical being. (Hold on Christians, people have toes and they are economical. They are not mutually exclusive.)

FYI - on Nov. 30 we began generating over 50% of our electrical needs from the roof - in Wisconsin in winter - by doing so, we patronized a domestic maker of solar panels, a local solar contractor, local electrical contractor, workers from the power company - and will now become manufacturers of surplus energy.

And all that as private persons - it was our "Lexus in the driveway" - along with the 40+mpg vehicle that together cost less than a luxury vehicle.

Half of one's need in winter equates with a nice surplus in the sunnier months - which the utility purchases back from us. Plus our generation comes during peak hours so we trade valuable peak current for cheaper off-peak in a time of day billing plan.

The Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry. Now we see that they even have Grover Norquist in their pocket. So they don't just own conservative politicians... they own the entire movement.

As one would expect, there are numerous factual errors in this article - Mr. Norquist isn't exactly considered an expert on energy policy. But, one might look at Colorado's example under Governor Bill Ritter.

Ritter took the Renewable Standard from 10% (passed by the voters when the Legislature wouldn't act) to 20% and then, in his final year, to 30%. Rates over the same period were below the the CPI. In fact, when Ritter took office, Colorado's rates were 19% below the national average and when he left they were 22% below the national average. Xcel Energy in Colorado is now a leader in wind energy. They were just approved to purchase 400MW of wind at $31/MWh - the least cost energy resource, lower than gas or coal.

Guys like Norquist are re-hashing old arguments that have been left behind with technological advances and improvements in renewable energy integration and management by utilities. 1970's arguments will sway those who are looking for an excuse to oppose advanced energy resources, but won't hold back international competition for the economic opportunities associated with addressing one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the world.

tomplant: "Guys like Norquist are re-hashing old arguments that have been left behind with technological advances and improvements in renewable energy integration and management by utilities."

This from Iberosphere:

"Expecting an almost certain increase in subsidy cuts by a PP government intent on cutting spending, Spain’s renewable market will face a difficult year, made all the more complicated by a series of lawsuits brought on by foreign and domestic industry actors. Calling for the Spanish government to make up for cuts to subsidies introduced in December 2010, a collection of 15 funds that had invested in solar and wind projects in Spain filed suit to the tune of €600 million."

Spains renewable energy market will be unsustainable without the government funding it has received in the past. In other words, it is incapable of surviving based on its own merits.

From the same article:

"Any expansion in access to the European energy grid could help support Spain’s burgeoning deep-set shale effort, which has seen some momentum in the northern Basque region this year with the opening of the country’s inaugural project. With the potential to exponentially increase domestic gas production, shale projects have been touted as invaluable energy assets to Spain’s energy security."

Spain is turning away from its renewable energy toward more fossil fuels.

And Germany? Germany applies about a $400 tax per year per person to support its renewable energy sector. I wonder how many Americans would support a $400 tax hike per year to subsidize "clean" energy?

The one thing holding Germany back today on renewable energy? Storage. So what are they turning to as a bridge to the future? Natural gas -- another fossil fuel.

Bottom line? Two of the countries in Europe most identified with renewable energy are figuring out that it just isn't ready for prime time. It's not reliable enough over extended periods requiring peak load capability of fossil fuel to still be available.

The Luddites can whine about this all they want. It won't change reality one iota.

Actually, the plant in question was originally to meet Tri-State's projected load across their four state service territory to provide power for rural coops. The Coops largely haven't taken advantage of renewable resources which is why they require more coal.

We produce more power than we use from our solar array. Our pool has a solar heater that gets the temperature to a comfy 85 degrees for up to 7 months of the year. Our Leaf for around town runs on our excess solar power.

So, Grover, I know how good you are at math, investments, ROI, etc, I'll lay out the numbers for you. For a total investment of 60 grand, we are saving around 8 grand a year on energy, heating and gasoline. That's a 13% return on investment per year. If we put that 60 grand in one of those big banks you Republic Party gurus love so much, my return on investment annually would be zero. If you count regular power and gasoline costs, my 60 grand will disappear in under 8 years.

So in a bit over seven years, we'll have saved enough to recoup the original investment. Thereafter, we get free power, heating and transit. Enjoy your power bills, Grover.

We produce more power than we use from our solar array. Our pool has a solar heater that gets the temperature to a comfy 85 degrees for up to 7 months of the year. Our Leaf for around town runs on our excess solar power.

So, Grover, I know how good you are at math, investments, ROI, etc, I'll lay out the numbers for you. For a total investment of 60 grand, we are saving around 8 grand a year on energy, heating and gasoline. That's a 13% return on investment per year. If we put that 60 grand in one of those big banks you Republic Party gurus love so much, my return on investment annually would be zero. If you count regular power and gasoline costs, my 60 grand will disappear in under 8 years.

So in a bit over seven years, we'll have saved enough to recoup the original investment. Thereafter, we get free power, heating and transit. Enjoy your power bills, Grover.